D&D General Henchmen watching your stuff?

[Shades of Eternity]

When you dungeon hack, you need somebody to watch the horses, cart, etc.

Usually that is henchmen of hirelings.

Do you expect your stuff to be there when you get back?

Do you expect your gm to mess with it?

What are alternatives?

 

[Mind of tempest]

aren't henchman a bad guy thing?

 

[Fanaelialae]

aren't henchman a bad guy thing?

I believe it's intended in the 1e/2e sense, where a player character could have a certain number of henchmen and hirelings (determined by their Charisma score). Henchmen were kind of like sidekicks, while hirelings were basically paid mercs.

 

[Hriston]

There are optional rules for the Loyalty of NPCs on page 93 of the DMG. In tenuous situations you can make a d10 “roll under” check against the NPC’s Loyalty score to determine if the NPC remains loyal.

 

[DND_Reborn]

When I DM it depends on the area. I've run the gambit of:

1. Everything is there and fine.
2. Something happened while the PCs were gone. Perhaps a henchman is killed or missing. Perhaps some things are damaged or missing.
3. It's all gone. Either the henchmen stole it all or they're dead and it is gone or destroyed.

 

[BookTenTiger]

I think that's a great tool to add a time pressure to dungeon crawls! For every long rest, the DM can roll to see if the henchman is able to keep your stuff safe, got attacked, or ran off. The roll gets bolstered if the PCs treat the henchman well, pay them extra, or give them good equipment.

 

[Redwizard007]

aren't henchman a bad guy thing?

Good guys can hench

 

[LordEntrails]

Does it add fun? Then go for it. As others have pointed out, rules are there if you think such is fun. If not, just ignore it and play on.

 

[Bupp]

I'll roll for random encounters for the henchmen. If one comes up, I'll roll a straight d20 to determine results. If I roll high, the henchmen did well (defeated the goblin scouts that returned to the lair, or hid from the hill giants), low they did poorly.

I also agree with using Loyalty scores.

 

[jmartkdr2]

For a game where dungeon delving is a business, it makes total sense to worry about that. It's a realistic business risk.

For a game about saving innocents from evil monsters, putting a lot of time and energy into worrying about the draft horses is wasted time.